Marc Armitage - Thought Crime

Props

Brand new LIVE online gig for July!

Brand new LIVE online gig for July!

Toys! Love them or hate them?

My first LIVE online gig for nearly two years. Grab it, quick!

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Whatever happened to marbles and jacks?

Whatever happened to marbles and jacks?

A 1,000 words on why we might not see 'collectables' based play like marbles and jacks being played as often as in the past.

"When I was at school I distinctly remember playing seasonal games with ‘collectables’. Mainly this involved games of marbles, played strictly during ‘marble season’ only you understand, although at home we played jacks often as my mother was an absolute expert at the game." 

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Cherished Possessions

Cherished Possessions

A biographical short on one of my most prized possessions and why I've hold of it for so long.

"The vast majority of our most precious childhood items tend not to survive into adulthood, though, because the most important things to us at the time tended to be rather simple and ephemeral." 

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The ugly side of loose parts

The ugly side of loose parts

a \‘shȯrt-rēd’\ piece

900 words about Simon Nicholson's 'Theory of Loose Parts' that asks if we are missing something in our interpretation of his ideas.

"Pretty collections of beads and shells, plastic shapes and buttons, stored neatly in nice wicker baskets or storage tubs, etc. do indeed constitute loose parts, there is a slight problem here. Becoming fixated with seeing ‘loose parts’ as just these small aesthetically pleasing things at the expense of others that might be less attractive to the adult eye really misses the major idea behind Nicholson’s original theory.​"

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Toy Guns and Robbers: Real or Un-real?

"It is not enough for adults to just explain reality in a real world context to children – to make sense of our type of reality children must do so in their own way and that means playing it through in their own non-adult reality."

The topic of war, weapon and superhero play is a thorny one that can be divisive yet there is one easily overlooked, sometimes ridiculed element of such play that should inform us on what our attitude towards it should be.

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